


Daisy Daisy

by bazemayonnaise



Series: Caring and Caring [2]
Category: Whitechapel (TV)
Genre: Babysitting, Family Feels, M/M, soft feelings only
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-27
Updated: 2020-05-27
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:01:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24404731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bazemayonnaise/pseuds/bazemayonnaise
Summary: They’d made quite the name for themselves in the station; or at least, Kent had. Together they’d get a plea for help from a desperate parent who needed a trusted member of society on short notice, and depending on the status of their most recent case, Kent and Chandler might accept.Llewelyn shows up on their doorstep one evening looking desperate.
Relationships: Joseph Chandler/Emerson Kent
Series: Caring and Caring [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1762351
Comments: 4
Kudos: 38





	Daisy Daisy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [steviekat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/steviekat/gifts).



> What's up it's me, yer boy, showing up to the fandom 5 years on with a sequel to a fic I found in my drafts from 2015.

Kent and Chandler have become quite good at baby-sitting. It’s gotten easier as Charlie has grown up, of course, now she’s able to actually vocalise what’s wrong, as opposed to wordlessly bawling any time she’s inconvenienced. 

She liked Uncle Joe to read her her bed-time stories because, she said, he could do the voices well, and he read at the right speed. He was also big enough to house her in his lap as they read, when Kent was slightly too thin and bony to be comfortable doing the same.  
She liked Uncle Em to sing her songs about scenarios she made up. Uncle Em was the more creative one who could, unlike Uncle Joe, cater to her going off-genre, usually leaving Chandler floundering. He didn’t understand how Thumbelina could ride Dumbo into battle against creatures from the Jurassic, whereas Kent could do so while adding in a bridge about the forest sprites and their love of unicorns. There were some days Chandler was genuinely concerned Kent and Charlie were on acid. 

They’d made quite the name for themselves in the station; or at least, Kent had. Somewhere along the line, someone had removed Chandler’s name from the rumour, dismissing his part in the events as created in the endless chinese-whisper that circulated. Together they’d get a plea for help from a desperate parent who needed a trusted member of society on short notice, and depending on the status of their most recent case, Kent and Chandler might accept. 

Llewelyn showed up on their doorstep one evening looking desperate. 

“Caroline?” Kent asked, trying not to make her too awkward as he straightened his t-shirt. He’d not been wearing it a second ago, and he’s not entirely sure it’s on the right way around.

“Emerson- sorry- I-” Llewelyn looked down at her arms, then up at Kent. “It’s only, I was taking him to my sister’s, but she’s had an accident, and he hates loud noises, but my partner’s on vacation and-” 

“Would you like to come in?” Kent asked, worried. 

She glanced over her shoulder at where a car was waiting, inside lights on, someone in the passenger seat. Kent could just about make out a man staring back, his face a mirror of Caroline’s.

“My brother- he’s worried about his wife- I have to get going before he tries to drive there himself...” 

She looked back down again, startled by Kent lifting her burden and hefting him in the crook of his arms. He can’t imagine Chandler will say no, not with his developing affection for children, but this one… this one is tiny.

“Are you sure?” she asks, despite Kent not having agreed in the first place. They’d not had to deal with nappies for over a year, and unless Llewelyn had brought supplies, they’d have to buy some age-suitable equipment…

“Everything should be in here, but if it isn’t, there’s a list of all the things I use, he’s been eating strange recently, snacking more than having regular meals, he’s absolute hell, you probably won’t get any sleep-”

“Caroline, breathe, you’re extremely close to hyperventilating.” If Kent’s arms weren’t pre-occupied, he’d put a soothing hand on her arm, but as is, he made do with mimicking the breaths she should be taking. 

“It’s just, I’m imagining her on my table and… I just… All I know is what happens to bodies after accidents like hers- I can see her cut apart and stitched up- and then there’s Ben, and I can’t just leave him, but if I take him, he’ll- he’ll-” 

“Caroline, he’ll be fine here. You’re not doing yourself any favours panicking.” 

Caroline looked back at the car, taking a couple more seconds to breathe the evening air before turning back, wrapping both Kent and Ben in a hug, kissing Ben on the forehead and jogging back to the car. She sped away, leaving behind the sound and stench of her engines. 

“Kent?” Chandler asked from the sofa they’d been inhabiting previously. He’d obviously been trying to listen, but with neither Kent nor Llewelyn doing much talking, he’d been at a loss without physically coming closer. Chandler always reverted to calling Kent by his surname when he wasn’t sure who was in the house, despite the station secret of their being a couple thwarted by their niece’s adamance that they were married, not just ‘friends’, as they’d all been attempting to convince her. 

Kent tried to shut the front door as quietly as possible, shouldering the large bag Caroline had passed over while attempting not to jostle the baby. He’d thought Charlie had been small, but this was an actual baby. Nearly a year younger than Charlie had been when she’d first visited their house. Kent came to kneel beside the sofa Chandler was lying on, arm over his eyes to shield them from the light Kent had had to turn on to open the door in the first place.

“Llewelyn’s sister-in-law’s in hospital, asked if we could look after Ben for her.” Chandler lifted his arm from his face, allowing his closed eyes to adjust before squinting them open and turning towards the two besides him. 

“We’re never going to need children of our own,” Chandler sighed. He sounded tired, objectionable, but he was already sitting up, small smile on his face. “This one’s practically newborn.” 

“Screw being detectives, we should quit and run a babysitting agency. The Chandlers’ Agency.”

“I thought we were keeping our names to stop the confusion.”

“Can’t exactly call it Kent’s- people would think we were county-funded.”

At nearly midnight, this made perfect sense to the overworked Chandler, who nodded with a resigned yawn. “I’ll get the cot.”

At about two AM, they were sat beside one another, staring dead-eyed at the muted TV, Kent attempting to get Ben to accept the milk he was being offered from a bottle without shrieking. 

He longed to get back to what they’d been doing before, which, while vanilla, had been a great stress-release. After nearly a month’s worth of investigating, their latest case had died without reason. Their kisses had just started to progress from long and slow, kisses like sighs becoming kisses like bites when Llewelyn had arrived, which, Chandler said, was probably a stroke of good luck. Any longer and they’d have been significantly less able to open the door so quickly. 

“I guess we should talk about how we were about to take out our frustration over the case on one another’s bodies?” 

Chandler leant back into the sofa, lips pulling into a smile. “I was quite enjoying it.”  
Kent wondered whether Chandler knew quite how attractive he looked, branded by Kent’s band’s logo on his favourite, now slightly worn t-shirt. sleep-deprived lidded eyes threatening mutiny.

“You can sleep if you want, Joe, I’ll wake you if I need some help.”

“Mmmm.” Chandler, as always, looked like he wanted to protest, to lead the efforts, to cause minimal work for Kent, but he was also struggling a lot with not yawning every other second.  
He went to the other sofa, annoyingly cold after having warmed his own seat for so many hours but his yawns were getting deeper, and falling asleep on the soft material was a practical luxury after the many nights he’d spend sleeping sat up at his desk. 

They swapped shifts when Ben woke Chandler up for the third time, absolutely certain that he’d not be able to get to sleep again. 

“What is it you want?” Chandler babbled to the still-screaming child, seeing the half-eaten bottle on the table, the clean diaper, taking Ben’s temperature and not coming up abnormal. 

As Kent stretched, had a quick pace about the house and dashed to the toilet, Chandler wiggled Ben’s legs back and forth as he’d read helped to calm babies, mimicking the motions of walking, which seemed to shock Ben into silence for a couple of seconds before he resumed. Chandler tried a variety of rocks, from gentle to swooping, but none could calm the child. 

Kent came back to the sofa Chandler was on and lay with his head in Chandler’s lap. “Push me off if it gets annoying,” he said before going to sleep almost instantly.

Chandler immensely enjoyed being trusted enough to be used as a lap pillow, but was equally thankful when Kent rolled off by his own accord about thirty minutes later, when holding Ben above Kent’s head without disturbing either had started to become a bit of a chore. 

Now he could watch as Kent, curled into himself beside Chandler on the extra-long sofa slept. It took some of the pain off of having to watch the sun rise and to hear the dawn chorus intermingled with angry baby. 

-

“We have no food for breakfast and I think I’m actually literally starving.” Kent closed the fridge door, which contained baby food, leftover petit filou from Charlie’s stay and a quarter of a carton of oat milk. 

“I need to get out of the house,” Chandler agreed. Neither of them had seen fresh air for weeks, and with a day off, now was the time to revel in the outside world. 

“We could go to that café, that one that didn’t look dingy.”  
Chandler nodded. “It usually looks quiet.”

-  
It wasn’t quiet. It was a Thursday morning, nine AM by the time they’d got to the café. “The school run,” Kent remembered belatedly. Mothers with babies teemed the café en force.  
Thankfully, as they entered the place, a couple of ladies stood and left, Chandler pointing at the seat with determination. Kent nodded at Chandler to go and order for them while he took Ben over to the table, claiming it as theirs. As he did, he felt the eyes watching him, the tables of women leaning closer to each other, the room growing to a whisper as he watched Chandler order. Ah. 

The table they’d acquired was clean enough, a waitress already having come to collect the leftover trays and giving the table a quick wipe. Even so, he took out a packet of antiseptic wipes and cleared down the table, leaving the dirty wipe to the side so Chandler knew it was clean. 

Chandler brought over the tray, setting down a bacon sandwich and coffee for Kent and a muesli pot and fruit tea for himself. He set about pouring his fruit and milk into the cereal part and mixed it with a spoon he’d wiped under the table. Kent squeezed three packets of ketchup into his sandwich and devoured it before Chandler had taken his first bite. 

“I’m going to uh, buy another. Did you want anything else?” Chandler shook his head, his smile amused. 

“Would you like me to pay?” 

Kent patted his jeans, surprised to actually find his wallet and waved away Chandler’s offer. “That’s okay, thank you.”

Deciding it was too much effort to unstrap Ben from the baby-harness the Mileses had left at theirs, he took Ben with him to the counter, ordering another and a custard danish for dessert. When he had acquired both, he returned to the table, to find a disconcerted Chandler. 

“The eyes,” he whispered. “I think they’re following us.”

“We’re a young gay couple with a baby boy, Joe, the eyes are absolutely following us.” Kent felt confident telling Chandler this until he said it, watching Chandler straighten and his eyes dart. “Or not, Sir?” he asked, readopting the guise they used at work. Chandler may be in his suit, but it now felt weird for Kent to use the honorific in his plain clothes.

He started to set Ben down on the table so that he could eat his breakfast slower, avoiding Chandler’s eye and giving him a couple of moments to think about how comfortable he was in the situation. 

“Would you like me to take Ben, Emerson?”

Kent smiled to himself as he rearranged the baby. “No, it’s okay, he seems happy enough on the table, I think.” 

There was a polite cough from behind Kent’s shoulder and he turned to find a smiling woman in her early thirties, caucasian, brunette, no visible tattoos. Kent physically stopped himself from profiling the stranger by forcing a smile on his face. 

“How old is he?” the woman asked, almost glowing. The two other ladies at the table besides theirs looked ecstatic, as if they’d just dared her to ask and she’s fulfilled it. Kent could practically hear the ears of the surrounding tables grow three sizes larger.

“Er,” he turned to Chandler. “About twelve weeks?”

“Mmm,” Chandler looked at his watch, checking the date. “About that now, yes.”

“Aw, he’s so precious. What’s his name?” asked another woman at the table. 

“Ben,” Kent said, wondering what these ladies were getting out of asking them about their child. Or their assumed child. 

“Named after one of his daddies?” the third woman asked, almost glowing as she looked between the two of them. 

“Er no, no. Emerson,” Kent said, introducing himself. 

“Joe,” Chandler said after a beat, looking as if he were about to stand in order to shake their hands, as if in a police interview. 

“I’ve never seen you around here before, are you new to the area?” the original lady, Simone asked after they’d all introduced themselves. 

“No no, live just up the street,” Kent said, casually ignoring the part where it was still only Chandler’s house. Most of his clothes were now at Chandler’s, but he’d as of yet been asked to fully move in. He wondered if Chandler would notice and/or care about the fib.

“We both work. First day off for a while,” Chandler expanded, growing slightly more comfortable and, Kent noticed, not slipping into his policeman role. He was still being Joe, and outside of the office, talking to strangers.

“What’s a smartly dressed man like you do then?” Lady two, Arabella asked, like the five of them were playing twenty questions. 

“We’re both police detectives,” Kent said, ever so slightly defensively. He might not look quite so impressive out of his suit, but he wanted to make sure they knew he and Chandler had almost the same job. 

Jerri, Simone and Arabella (as well as half the listening audience they had,) all gasped, pleased. “Policemen!” a couple said, and Kent was not unsurprised to hear a couple of snickers about boys in uniforms.

“Imagine having a job in the police with a little boy like that!” Jerri said, sounding theatrically aghast. “Why did you decide to have him now?”

“It uh, just kinda happened?” Kent said, enjoying leading the ladies on, even if Chandler looked pleasantly confused. 

“And so you stay home while Joe wins the bread?” Simone asked Kent, “You should come here more often while he’s at work, while away the hours.”  
Kent could very much imagine himself being adopted into this group of ladies, made into their brother/father/husband replacement. He tried not to let his smile slip at the horrific thought. “I’ll try to bear that in mind?”

“Oh!” Jerri said, “You must work at Whitechapel! Do you know Caroline? Oh what’s her name, something welsh, I’m sure.”

“Llewellyn?” Chandler asked, and Jerri nodded. “She’s a crucial part of our investigation team. We’ve missed her during her leave. Does she come here?”

“Oh almost every day, with her little boy. Also called Ben, now that’s a coincidence.”

“Joe… Emerson…” Simone looked lost in thought. “Chandler, Kent?”  
This time, Kent’s smile dropped. “Yes?”

About ten of the surrounding ladies swivelled then, to get a less-subtle view of the two, almost all of whom then made a pleased ‘ooohhhh’ sound. 

“Now I’m fairly sure that that is little Benjamin Llewellyn, so can I assume her rumours of the babysitting policemen isn’t a total lie?”

“Busted,” Chandler teased, making a pleased face at Kent. 

“I thought you were going to accuse us of stealing him,” Kent admitted, thankful. 

“Either way, you must be miracle workers,” Simone said, looking over at the sleeping Ben. “He hates this place, poor Caroline could never make him sit still long enough to drink her mocha.”

Arabella laughed in acquiescence. “It’s become quite the running gag.”

Kent’s laugh rang hollow even to his own ears. “Yeah, we’ve lived Ben’s wrath.” 

“Didn’t get much sleep last night then, hey?” The girls smiled, sympathy in their voices. “Must be rough, especially with jobs like yours…”

“Oh yes, Caroline is always saying how hard you boys work, staying up late.”

“I for one am glad to have such hard workers keeping our streets so safe.” There was a murmured agreement and Kent looked down at the floor, not exactly pleased by the hero-worship. From the corner of his eye, he could see a slight defensiveness in Chandler’s posture, but as the murmurs grew a softness edged at him, a reluctant smile to receive praise. His usual media presence meant most of the public who recognised him only knew him as the man who’d let the Ripper copycat go. 

“And to have men like you only living up the street from us! I feel so much safer! Oh-” Simone paused. “That is, unless you don’t live together?”

“Not yet,” Kent said, the corner of his mouth upturning.

“Oooooh,” there was a collective gasp of air as the room sensed the opportunity for gossip.

“I thought- because you said-” Chandler eyed the crowd, but decided he could ignore them.  
“Because your housemates already struggle with rent, you felt unable to quit the rooms and leave them to fend for themselves? I didn’t want to make you feel like you had to choose…”  
Now the eyes went to Kent, as if the women were watching a tennis match. He’d gone a fair few shades pinker and he still didn’t look up. “Would’ve been nice to have been asked anyway.”

“Would you like to live with me Emerson? You could keep renting with your friends if- in case- but I quite like our arrangement.”

There was a wolf-whistle and applause as Kent nodded, which all stopped suddenly as a couple of babies started to wriggle at the noise, including, alarmingly, Ben. A smattering of laughter followed, quiet this time, making sure nobody disturbed anymore children. 

“Caroline will be pleased,” Arabella said, grinning. “She’s been on about you boys for years and she’s never known for sure whether you’d gotten together. Apparently no rumours make it to the morgue without something going awry.”

-

Chandler had a soft look on his face as he cradled Ben, eighteen months now and a regular at their establishment. Kent was shower-fresh, towelling his hair dry as he landed on the sofa of their living room. 

“Did I hear you singing?” Kent asked, his own smile smug to have caught Chandler out. 

“Maybe.”

“Oh? Am I being issued a challenge? Should I be worried that Uncle Em is being ousted as resident bard?” 

“You were getting complacent. Thought I’d light a fire under you.”

“Oh yeah? Go on then, impress me, sir.” Kent lounged back on the sofa, acting every bit the Music Producer, egotistical and wanting to be proven right. 

“Daisy, Daisy,” Chandler started, slow and slightly uncertain, “Give me your answer do. I'm half crazy all for the love of you. It won't be a stylish marriage, I can't afford a carriage. But you'll look sweet, Upon the seat, Of a bicycle made for two.” 

“Alright,” Kent conceded, “There might be something there. We’ll have to see what we can do about the confidence issues. I think you need to practise more.”

“Oh?” Chandler asked, playing along. 

“Absolutely. You’ll have to sing for me. All the time.”

“I see, practise, huh,” Chandler teased.

“Only for practise, no other reason.”

“Mm, okay.” Chandler rocked Ben, making sure the boy was still comfortable before clearing his throat. “How about this… We will go tandem as man and… man, Daisy, Daisy, Peddling away down the road of life-”

“Now, see, because you changed wife for man, you’ve no longer got the rhyme with life,” Kent said, smile pulling wider even as Chandler continues. 

“I and my Emerson Kent.”

“Does it irk you that it’s not grammatically correct?” Kent asks. 

“When the road's dark, we can both despise Policemen and lamps as well,”

“Didn’t realise the song was anti-cop,”

“There are bright lights in the dazzling eyes, Of beautiful Emerson Kent.”

“Again, you can’t rhyme ‘well’ with ‘Kent’, did your Oxbridge education give you anything?”

“Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do.” Chandler met Kent’s eyes, and didn’t let him look away, Chandler’s face inching from teasing song to careful seriousness. “I'm half crazy all for the love of you. It won't be a stylish marriage, I can't afford a carriage, But you'll look sweet upon the seat, Of a bicycle built for two.”

“Did you just propose to me via nursery rhyme?” 

Chandler shifted his grip so he could hold Ben in one arm, pressed against his chest, then dug through his trouser pockets until he came up with a small box. 

“Holy shit.” 

-

“When I first met Emerson, it was at this small club in Coventry, yes, I know, none of you can imagine me in a club, but there I was, attempting to chat up a cute guy with blue flowers painted onto his cheek.”

“And there was glitter everywhere,” Kent butted in, earning an amused laugh. 

“Oh god yes, I was still finding glitter three weeks later.”

“He was the only one to buy our album and a t-shirt. I would have married him on the spot, to be honest.” 

“You could have told me that earlier, I’ve been anxious for months.”

There was a burst of laughter and someone sounding suspiciously Miles-like heckled: “You’re always anxious, Gov!”

Chandler chuckled to himself as he turned his card over. “And because I was me, the next morning I went to a florist and tried to find the flowers he'd painted on his face, which I’ve never admitted to anyone until now, so you’re all welcome.”

There was a quiet ahw, with a couple of embarrassed whoops from the guys. 

“It was stephanotis, to all those interested, hence the er,” Chandler indicated around the room, at the flower arrangements in the middles of tables, the baby-blue and white theme to the decoration. “And hydrangea because I was told having just the little flowers would have been weird. Hydrangea means understanding, by the way, to anyone interested.”

“He really took the ‘something blue’ thing to heart,” Kent grinned. 

“I went back to the club the next night, missed my train and the first (and only) lecture I’ve ever missed, thought I’d give the boy in blue some flowers, but alas he was only playing for the one night. Cut to a decade later and I’m handing a t-shirt to a shirtless man in my living room, mourning my lost love, and, well… I guess what I’m trying to say is, sometimes it’s worth making an absolute tit of yourself. Sometimes that slow and winding path leads you towards something beautiful, leads you to a man like Emmerson. I cannot tell you how privileged I feel that it did.”


End file.
